LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      MATILDA HAD FALLEN in love. She had had no intention of doing so, but there it was. She first saw the stranger during the reading of the first lesson by Sir Benjamin Fox, whose pompous voice, pronouncing biblical names with precise correctness, always set her thoughts wandering. She glanced along the pew at her two brothers, home for the half-term holidays, her two sisters and her mother and then allowed her gaze to wander to the manor pew at the side of the chancel, where Lady Fox sat with various members of her family. They all looked alike, she thought, with their fine beaky noses and thin mouths. She turned her head very slightly and looked across the main aisle and saw the stranger sitting by Dr Bramley. He appeared a very large man with broad shoulders, fair hair which she suspected had a sprinkling of grey, and a splendid profile. A pity that he didn’t look round… Sir Benjamin rolled the last unpronounceable name off his tongue and she fixed her eyes on him once more—green eyes, shadowed by sweeping black lashes, in a lovely face crowned by a wealth of copper hair.

      Her father announced the hymn and the congregation rose to sing it cheerfully, galloping ahead of the organ when it had the chance, and then sitting once more for the second lesson. The headmaster of the village infants’ school read it in a clear unhurried voice and this time she listened, until something compelled her to glance across the aisle again. The stranger was looking at her and he was every bit as handsome as she had expected him to be; unsmiling—it wouldn’t have done in church if he had smiled anyway—and somehow compelling. She went faintly pink and looked away from him quickly, feeling all at once as though she were in some kind of blissful heaven, knowing with certainty that she had fallen in love. It was a delightful sensation, and she pondered over it during her father’s sermon, taking care not to look across the aisle again; the village was a small one and rather isolated, so that everyone was inclined to mind everyone else’s business and turn a molehill into a mountain, preferably a romantic one, and that if a girl so much as glanced twice at the same man. She was aware that the village was disappointed that she hadn’t married. She had had three proposals and although she had hesitated over them she had declined them kindly and watched her erstwhile suitors marry without regret. Twenty-six was getting on a bit, as Mrs Chump at the general stores so often reminded her, but she had waited. Now here he was, the man she wished to marry, dropped as it were from heaven into her path. He could of course be married, engaged or a confirmed bachelor—she would have to find out, but, as she was great friends with Dr Bramley, it would be easy to ask him.

      The last hymn sung, the congregation filed out, stopping to chat as it went, and since the rector’s family were well liked their progress was slow; they arrived at the church door just in time for her to see the stranger, still with the doctor, talking to Sir Benjamin, and even as Matilda looked Lady Fox tapped him on an arm and pushed Roseanne, her eldest daughter, forwards. Matilda watched him being swept away down the tree-lined avenue which led to the manor-house from the churchyard.

      She watched him go, already planning to ask who he was when she got to the manor-house in the morning. Esme, her younger sister, fourteen and as sharp as a needle, tugged her arm. ‘Hey, Tilly—come on,’ and then, ‘I bet you’ve fallen for him—I have. A bit old for me I suppose, but he’d do nicely for you.’

      ‘Rubbish, love. What nonsense you do talk.’

      ‘You went all pink when he looked at you—I expect it was your hair—it kind of glows, you know, even under a hat!’

      They started to walk along the narrow path which led to the rectory garden and Esme said, ‘Hilary’s seen him too, but of course she’s engaged…’

      ‘Let’s forget him,’ said Matilda cheerfully. ‘We’ll probably never see him again.’ She uttered the remark with the heartfelt wish that it might not be true. However could she marry anyone else now that she had seen him and knew that she had fallen in love at last? She would have to stay an old maid, if there was such a thing these days, helping with the parish and wearing dreary hats and worthy undateable clothes.

      She sighed heavily at the very idea and Esme said, ‘I bet you’ll meet again—I dare say he’s your fate.’

      ‘Oh, what romantic nonsense,’ said Matilda again and hurried to the kitchen to help her mother dish up the Sunday lunch.

      Her mother had her head in the Aga oven, and was prodding the joint with a fork. ‘Put the apples on for the sauce, will you, dear? I wonder who that giant was in church? Did you see him?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘He seemed to know the Foxes. I must keep my ears open in the village tomorrow.’

      She emerged and closed the oven door, an older version of her lovely daughter although the hair was streaked with grey. ‘That was a frightful hat Lady Fox was wearing—I wonder

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